Ending ***SPOILER***
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j72coburger — 18 years ago(March 09, 2008 06:35 PM)
I loved this movie right up until the disappointing ending. Normally I accept such things as a product of their times and chalk it up to an interesting peek at a past era, but this ending was so far from reality as I know it that I found it rather unacceptable. The only way that this movie was innovative was that it showed a woman in power, in both the boardroom and the bedroom, but rectified the situation neatly at the end.
Whadda ya hear, whadda ya say! -
yakikorosu — 18 years ago(March 09, 2008 09:10 PM)
I agree that the ending is a real shame. I think it's interesting though that back in the 1930s, it was probably pretty much a necessity to salvage credibility for the film. Robert Osborne on TCM noted that even with this ending, this film faced a major backlash when it came out for suggesting that a woman was capable of running a major company even for a time. I guess audiences in those days would just grimly nod along when Brent tells Chatterton that women are "made for" marriage and having children, not being in business.
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Death_to_Pan_and_Scan — 17 years ago(May 16, 2008 02:15 AM)
The ending did screw up the film. I thought it was very good until she breaks down and wants to be a housewife. There's no reason she can't be a wife and a businesswoman except that the audiences of the time might scoff at a woman in a position of power as a 'threat to manliness'. Progressive film gets sel-out conservative ending.
Even as a man I found this insulting to women and pandering to the males in the audience. I'm sure modern women would have much more trouble with the conclusion of this film.
re: other films in the Forbidden Hollywood vol.2 collection:
'The Divorcee' suffers from a similar helpless/pathetic woman syndrome ending.
'Three on a Match', while an okay film, had the best ending in the set. What the female lead did in that film was a bit unusual and at least made sense to the story unlike these two. 'Night Nurse' was good, but I don't completely recall the ending off the top of my head since I watched that one ages ago. Getting ready to watch 'A Free Soul' soon and the rest of the docu next (recorded these off TCM a few months back and am just getting around to them today). Might buy the boxset if the remaining film is good.If you're watching 'Fullscreen' DVDs, you aren't getting the whole picture.
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jadorediorr — 17 years ago(October 19, 2008 02:31 PM)
Ugh, I can at least find relief from reading the consensus on this board! I was also extremely disappointed in the ending. I think the disappointment wouldn't have been so strong if I hadn't loved the rest of the movie so much. It was charming, funny, well dialogued, going on a great pace. I was completely won over by her character up until the end. It was just such an insult to the rest of the film!
As someone else already pointed out, with that being the times, what else could you expect. -
ethereal_tb — 17 years ago(February 17, 2009 11:40 PM)
It's not the ending I would have preferred and I don't think it was in character with the way Allison is portrayed in the rest of the movie, but there still are powerful career women who get tired of it and want to chuck it all and be "taken care of". I know someone like that. I just wonder how long being dependent on someone would last for my friend and Allsion before they got bored.
'You may very well think that; I couldn't possibly comment' -
Devans00 — 16 years ago(April 16, 2009 09:02 PM)
I chalk up the ending to a sign of the times. I've seen movies made as late as the mid 1950s with comments like "women haven't accomplished anything in the world. they aren't smart enough to do anything other than have babies". So I can imagine how sacrilegious it would have been in 1933 to show a woman be successful in business and love without being "punished" somehow.
No two persons ever watch the same movie. -
iwals — 16 years ago(July 18, 2009 08:20 PM)
Why do people jump all over women when they reject the business world and decide to get married, have children, and stay at home? The women's liberation movement decried the lack of choice for women, but when a woman makes the "wrong" choice then she is attacked for it. Let the flames commence!
Nobody gets to be a cowboy forever. -
Hypatia42 — 16 years ago(December 10, 2009 09:45 PM)
I'm going to guess that your comment is an expired trolling attempt, but in case I'm wrong I will answer your question.
Alison was not designed as a truly individual character but a case study to reaffirm the American publics bias that women were unfit for work, competition, or responsibility. It is not merely that she reaches a breaking point, but the implication that every woman, by nature, is cast from an inferior mold. Thus, they will all fall as she does, says the film.
I would also note that women who participated in the liberation movement do not tend to mind that some women want to remain as the dutiful wife, they mind those dutiful wives who tell other women that the role of wife is the only proper one. The moral judgment of either extremist is very distasteful.
I say to each her own. But the film, entitled 'Female' not entitled 'Alison' very crudely implies that having nine children is the greatest, highest, most responsible past time for a woman (despite Alison having successfully run the company for five years). The film does not imply (as was chanted by the liberation movement) that women have a choice and that Alison simply chooses the home and hearth but that she belongs there. It is a condemnation, a reprobation for her previous ambition, and tries to be a stern lesson to the ladies of the audience.
I would say that is why it sickens so many viewers today. -
iwals — 16 years ago(December 11, 2009 09:13 AM)
No, I'm not a troll, it just seems like people on these boards turn to personal attacks when they disagree with someone. I do, however, stand by my post. And besides the general feeling of a woman's duties and place back then, remember this was during the depression. When a woman was working, many saw it as taking away a job from a man, so there was a certain resentment towards her. The ending was probably seen as necessary to appease the audience.
Nobody gets to be a cowboy forever. -
Hypatia42 — 16 years ago(December 12, 2009 01:06 AM)
Glad to hear your comment was legitimate, sorry for my false assumption. It just seems the world's message boards are full of twelve-year olds or people trying to recapture their youth by acting like twelve-year olds. My troll senses are hypersensitive on IMDB.
I am curious though, you just said that you "stand by [your] post." In your original post you chastised people for not accepting some women wanted to stay in the kitchen.
But as I was trying to point out, people do not object that some women want to remain out of business, they resent the condescending chauvinistic tone of this film that claims all women belong there. Again, it's called 'Female.'
I feel that this film can be safely derided as socially irresponsible or at the very least a nuisance because of its message, regardless of the era. I feel that all the necessary information was available, even in the 1930s for people and writers to know better. The competencies of the sexes was not some mystical, difficult to calculate variable. The social roles being reinforced in this film were mere social conventions and I can unabashedly say that I think people should have known better back then.
The fact it was made during the depression is not an excuse. Frankly one would think this film would have upset the masses simply because it showed the wasteful pettiness of the wealthy upper crust, not because it briefly antagonizes opinions on gender roles. Regardless, I think the ending is not only crude, but that it is distastefully, inartistically disjointed in light of the the first fifty minutes of the story. It capitulates to the social norm of woman being weak and inferior, it beats Alison, but it gives a narratively weak and ridiculous scene in which she does it.
Part of me hopes the writers did this intentionally. They made Alison's fall into frumpy housewife intentionally unbelievable so that the audience would walk out doubting the ending, but I doubt it. -
mdonln — 9 years ago(January 14, 2017 09:14 PM)
iwals says > Why do people jump all over women when they reject the business world and decide to get married, have children, and stay at home? The women's liberation movement decried the lack of choice for women, but when a woman makes the "wrong" choice then she is attacked for it.
I'm with you. For all the talk of women having more options, only one option ever seems to satisfy some people. They complain about the ending of this movie even though it was set in a time when most women would have actually been happier with that choice. They also assume that all women are looking to have casual, meaningless sex with men who are not their equal.
Today, a lot of woman would love to have choices but they don't really have them. Like Alison they're living a life they mostly fell into, can't escape and/or in which they feel unfulfilled; even trapped. Often they have the husband and kids but still have to juggle a job and can't seem to find contentment; just guilt and stress. Others wait too long or can't find a suitable guy willing to commit.
I loved the movie especially because of the ending. She found a strong guy with whom to share her life. I hope she did have every one of those nine kids!
Woman, man! That's the way it should be Tarzan.
[Tarzan and his mate] -
Gloede_The_Saint — 16 years ago(August 16, 2009 11:43 AM)
I love this film but yes the ending was dissapointing. But then again we are supposed to rut for the guy who says that women belong in the household and the women who doesn't aren't real women. Just to add that I'm a guy (and straight) and even I found that a bit offensive. We must of course consider the time it was made in.
Somebody here has been drinking and I'm sad to say it ain't me - Allan Francis Doyle -
Hypatia42 — 16 years ago(December 10, 2009 09:31 PM)
The thing I resent about the ending is how completely her character is denounced. The first fifty minutes she had me grinning, then suddenly her company is in financial straits. At the beginning of the film the boardroom discussion is of steady sales, though she ambitiously wants them to increase. At her party a salesman discusses the ease with which her cars can be sold to the American people.
So how did the company manage to get stuck on the ropes in the space of ten minutes?
It seemed a striking condemnation of her management abilities. She ran the place for five years, suddenly it was ripe for a takeover? I was offended by that. It was not only her capitulation to 'marriage' but that she was going to hand over the company responsibility to a mere engineer who lacked leadership experience. Again, implying that any man would be a better leader than a woman.
Why oh why, in a world that is consistently lacking in talented and energetic leaders, did/do people want to keep half the population from working?
Absolutely infuriating. -
netshopper-2 — 16 years ago(February 10, 2010 08:31 AM)
I agree that the message and story of the movie was ruined by knocking a strong woman off her pedestal. What was even worse was her taking that chauvinistic advice from her secretary, Pettigrew. The way he said what she had to do to land her man made me wince.
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practicepiano — 16 years ago(March 15, 2010 08:09 AM)
I was "saved by the bell" today I was watching it on TCM when a piano student showed up for a lesson, right before the illogical ending!
Besides being unpleasant towards the idea of women being able to function in business, I always find these endings unpleasant towards men. I don't like the idea that all of the burden must be on the man to earn, and that he's not a man if he doesn't cheerfully insist on that burden.
At their best, the various waves of women's rights movements that have come through over the years have had the potential to be good for everyone, men and children included. -
toshguy — 15 years ago(August 20, 2010 05:34 PM)
Yep, it the first two thirds showed that not only men can be bosses and use people from the other sex and throw them away like candy wrappers and that the rock rolls both ways (or however the saying went). It seemed to show that men and women can equally and in the same way be a-holes and that it isn't justified in any case. But ultimately what the movie brought across to us is that women should just lie flat on their husbands' backs, queeze out children and keep house (unless they can afford servants for the latter like our heroine). It's easy to see why Ruth's character was so exaggerated - so that there could have been a strong contrast when she realised the folly of her ways and learned how to be both a woman and a businesswoman. However, they went for the exact opposite extreme at the end and the build up was invain. Furthermore, by this film's logic, one could construe that not only is the man the only one who should be in the office, but also that it isn't wrong for him to solicit his female employees/colleagues, since if they ain't married yet, what other good are they for?
I'm here, Mr. Man, I can not tell no lie and I'll be right here 'till the day I die